The Feline Conservation of Weight Principle

[bellinghman]

It's about time I wrote this down. Since I'd just formulated this in a reply in mizkit's journal, I thought I'd repeat it here:

sounding like a million cats in army boots.

I have this theory. OK, perhaps only a hypothesis, since nothing is falsifiable when cats are around.

It's called the Feline Conservation of Weight Principle, and it goes like this:

Cats are averagely proportioned small animals, with a weight according to the physical principles of size, density and local gravitational field. However, they are exceptional hunters, extremely light on their feet when stalking, and so on.

It is obvious to an observer that a cat weighs less when stalking. We know this is not due to the gravitational field changing, since the prey don't suddenly also develop strange lightness, so it must be that the cat now has less mass. This is obviously contrary to the normal laws of physics, particularly the law of conservation of mass. Except that the conservation laws are actually slightly bendable - for instance, a subatomic particle may come into existence from nowhere for a suitably brief period, just so long as it disappears again - and this is one of those cases. So long as the average weight of the cat is constant over the longer term, it may vary up and down. When stalking, some of its weight is 'postponed' to the future.

The 'cats in army boots' phenomenon is merely the time that the extra weight comes into effect to rebalance the average.

(Slight editing of the original applied.)

Comments

[uitlander]

Hmm... you really should have worked a reference to Schroedinger into that ;-)

[beckyl.livejournal.com]

Cats obviously have selective control of this phenomenon to some extent - witness that any cat who doesn't want to be picked up is always heavier than the same cat who doesn't mind or would like to be carried.

[mkillingworth.livejournal.com]

Cats are also heavier when walking over you in the bed than they are sitting on your lap.

[megabitch.livejournal.com]

This would be akin to Korenwolf's compression of aggression theory? The one that states that all women have exactly the same levels of aggression. The smaller the woman, the more compressed the aggression and the more force behind it when it is let out.

[drachii.livejournal.com]

You could probably do something similar for the amount of noise cats make =D

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

Around our house the theory is that cats have complete control of gravity in their immediate vicinity. That's what a cat which is 12 1/2 pounds of solid muscle can jump up on the bed without being noticed while a 5 pound ball of fluff sounds like the 2nd army division on the stairs at 4am.

MKK

[glinda-w.livejournal.com]

and now I'm wondering where the "shed massive clouds of fur at will" phenomenon fits into all this?

(Annie just lapcatted me, and all of a sudden, there were puffs of cat fur in the air, and in my breathing - I *know* it's deliberate.)